This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is our American stories, and our next story comes to us from a man who's simply known as the History Guy.

His videos are watched by hundreds of thousands of people of all ages over on YouTube.

The History Guy is also heard here in our American stories.

The idea of a lawn, well, it's very old, but it took a key technology to make lawns very common.

Here's the history guy with the story of lawn care.

The word lawn is derived from the middle English word lawned, meaning a glade or opening

in the woods.

Laund then began to mean also a common area in a village where farmers could graze livestock,

a place that may have looked something like a modern lawn giving the natural mowing and fertilizing.

The idea of the shared laud, however, shows the difference in the understanding of a lawn at the time,

as the spaces near houses were reserved for growing vegetables, fruits, and herbs.

The original concept of a dwelling surrounded by

grass likely came from medieval castles, which would have the area around them clear to forest

and or provide a clear field of vision for defenders. The area thus cleared would then naturally

fill in with grasses. There is documentary evidence of the use of deliberately cultivated turf

grasses as early as the 12th century in England for bowling greens, the oldest known bowling green for Target-style

bowling to survive to modern times, was built in 1299 in Southampton and is still used by the

Southampton Bowling Club.

The use of lawns was most likely originally popularized as a location for sports, such as tennis and croquet courts and golf putting greens.

Perhaps it was the association with castles, homes of the wealthier, perhaps it was simply as a landscaping element,

but the idea of a lush, carefully cut, green grass lawn gained popularity in the latter half of the 17th century

...